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BB&T hires new Hot Springs financial center leader
 | | Janet Seldomridge is the new Hot Springs BB&T officefinancial center leader. (Recorder photo by Cynthia B. Coleman) |
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Hot Springs - Janet Seldomridge has climbed a long, singular ladder to break through banking's glass ceiling. Beginning in January, she became BB&T's new financial center leader in its Hot Springs office.
In what has been traditionally a man's profession, especially in management, Seldomridge oversees the operations in Hot Springs, which includes an all female staff, save for one male.
Living with brothers and having male cousins, Seldomridge grew up doing "boy things." With her husband and two stepsons, she still enjoys customary male activities such as camping and tubing down the Jackson River.
"I've always lived in a boy's world," Seldomridge said, with a spark in her eyes and dimples deeply set in a wide grin. "Growing up this way prepared me for leadership in a man's world."
A financial center leader is similar to a branch manager but supervises a larger office,which can offer more services to clients. "A financial center leader," Seldomridge said, "basically oversees everything in the branch, such as loans and deposit and loan growth."
When asked what makes a good leader, Seldomridge answered without a pause. "A good leader is responsible and fair, to employees and clients. It's doing what's right for both, making a win-win situation for everybody."
Seldomridge grew up in the Rich Patch community in Alleghany County, south of Low Moor, and graduated from Alleghany High School. After graduation, she began working at First Virginia Bank's operation center in Roanoke, in the certificateand cashiers deposit departments.
"Banking is a wonderful profession," she said, leaning back and reflecting on the early days of her career. "When you are 18 and want to start out, you walk into an interview and realize, 'Oh I'm going to tell them I want a career in banking.' But at that point maybe I didn't truly know I did want that career. But once I got into it, I found it to be wonderful."
Seldomridge continued, "What I like best about banking is working with the people. Working in an operation center you are cut off - though I had communication with the phone - but it is not the same as being face-to-face and working with my clients. What I like the most about being the financial center leader is working with the staff and watching them grow."
After several years in Roanoke, she moved to a branch in Covington and later worked in First Virginia Banks in Woodbridge and Charlottesville.
In 2000, Seldomridge moved back to Covington to become the Wal-Mart branch manager. In 2005, she became the manager at the BB&T Craig Avenue officein Covington. BB&T picked up her time with First Virginia Bank so she has 20 credited years with BB&T.
BB&T stands for Branch Bank and Trust, with Branch as the last name for the man who started the bank, Alpheus Branch. While based in Winston Salem, N.C., BB&T banks are located on the east coast, expanding in the 1990s after buying up smaller banks, such as First Virginia. The Covington banks Seldomridge worked in had been bought by Planter's Bank before they were bought by BB&T.
When asked the difference between working for a large bank rather than a smaller one, Seldomridge said, "BB&T still has a community feel, to where we make our decisions locally; but we have so many more products we can offer and more dimensions to banking. The clients are still going to come here and deal one-on-one with us and with the tellers - it still has that small town feel. But any product a client would need, we have. The convenience of it is wonderful."
While Seldomridge may live in a man's world she does enjoy shopping with girlfriends and also reading, taking walks around her neighborhood and lying by her pool in the summertime. "I love my pool," she said with a playful grin.
The Jackson River is just below her house, so the whole family puts in there and tubes down to her mother's house in Petticoat, a four-hour float and a favorite summer activity. "We also enjoy camping at Lake Moomaw," Seldomridge said.
She has been married to Rickey Seldomridge for eight years and every other weekend, mothers her stepsons Matthew, 15 and Brady, 13. They live in Falling Spring in Alleghany County. "The commute time to the Hot Springs officeis the same as it was to Covington," she said.
Seldomridge is a member of the Covington Junior Women's Club, the Bath County Chamber of Commerce and the Hot Springs Business Association; she is also on the board of directors for TAP and a cochair for the Alleghany region March of Dimes.
"I am also very involved with the Falling Spring volunteer firedepartment," she said. "My husband is a member of it. It does not have a ladies auxiliary per se; I guess it's just the chief's wife and I who take water and do all the things for them."
In making the move to working in a larger community to a smaller one, Seldomridge said there was not much difference. "The needs are basically the same," she said. "whether for loans to build a home or make additions, debt consolidation or if someone has a retirement plan - finding the best way to get the most money for it. The network is the same in both areas."
While Seldomridge is new to the Hot Springs BB&T office,the staff there are not strangers to her. "I know all of them, because they were with First Virginia Bank. I've known them forever."
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